As in most films produced during the war years, at least those that focused on Asian locales, China Girl probably had two important functions when it was made. The first, of course, was to entertain audiences with action and romance, to be profitable, the second was to serve the US war effort though, sadly, there was never much of a US effort made to actually help China until late in the war.
In this film George Montgomery--described by some critics as the actor chosen after Montgomery Cliff or Tyrone Power refused the role-- plays a rakish hustler out to profit from the chaos of war. After escaping Japanese controlled China, he lands in Burma where he meets his China Girl, played by Gene Tierney who looks not a bit like a Chinese woman.
While there is some attempt to inject other elements to the plot, Japanese agents and even a "love triangle", these seem superficially installed for their melodrama and don't do much to draw the viewer into the story. A major part of the plot is that true love can absolve moral failings. How sweet!
There are logistical and factual problems with the story-line: the hero says he has just fled a Japanese military base in Luchow, located in Sichuan, where the Japanese army never advanced to; a World War I vintage biplane carries its passengers several hundred miles over mountainous terrain, surely well beyond such a plane's range; a dispute over destinations has the hero arguing that they will go to Kunming, not Yunnan (Kunming is in the center of Yunnan); the hero and his gal take an evening stroll to the Dhammayan Temple vicinity, about a hundred miles from Mandalay, where they are supposed to be. But one would not expect Hollywood scriptwriters to be familiar with Asian geography,and viewers of that era even less so.
All in all, a mediocre effort to depict a trans-continental romance set against the background of horrendous human tragedy in WW II China. There were some good films made during this period, but this is not one of them.
In this film George Montgomery--described by some critics as the actor chosen after Montgomery Cliff or Tyrone Power refused the role-- plays a rakish hustler out to profit from the chaos of war. After escaping Japanese controlled China, he lands in Burma where he meets his China Girl, played by Gene Tierney who looks not a bit like a Chinese woman.
While there is some attempt to inject other elements to the plot, Japanese agents and even a "love triangle", these seem superficially installed for their melodrama and don't do much to draw the viewer into the story. A major part of the plot is that true love can absolve moral failings. How sweet!
There are logistical and factual problems with the story-line: the hero says he has just fled a Japanese military base in Luchow, located in Sichuan, where the Japanese army never advanced to; a World War I vintage biplane carries its passengers several hundred miles over mountainous terrain, surely well beyond such a plane's range; a dispute over destinations has the hero arguing that they will go to Kunming, not Yunnan (Kunming is in the center of Yunnan); the hero and his gal take an evening stroll to the Dhammayan Temple vicinity, about a hundred miles from Mandalay, where they are supposed to be. But one would not expect Hollywood scriptwriters to be familiar with Asian geography,and viewers of that era even less so.
All in all, a mediocre effort to depict a trans-continental romance set against the background of horrendous human tragedy in WW II China. There were some good films made during this period, but this is not one of them.